fact: the stated or written account
of an act or event. Facts are of two kinds: those referring to
human actions, and those referring to all other types of events.
See also act.

factual account: euphemism
for a set of facts believed to be true, or to accurately describe
events. Sounds easier to establish than it actually is. For instance,
try to find a factual account of the assassination of JFK.

faith The confidence that
what one knows, feels, or senses is ultimately real and can be
verified by direct personal experience. Distinguished from belief,
which always involves
suppositions that cannot be verified, faith may be regarded
as intuitive certainty, rather than blind reliance on suppositions.
For instance, to have faith in life after death is not the same
as
embracing beliefs about life after death. Faith, defined as
confidence in what it is possible to experience or achieve for
oneself,
can exist independent of beliefs.

Having
said that, I must add that faith is rarely defined in this manner.
Rather, it is taken conventionally as a blanket term for
reliance on whatever one believes. To say, "I
follow my faith," means to live and act in accordance
with beliefs "taken
on faith," i.e., beliefs received in a prescripted, doctrinal
form, especially beliefs in regard to matters considered to
lie beyond explanation or
proof, such as survival of consciousness after death. Those who
live by faith in this sense insist on its necessity, for there
are
some
things
that
we humans simply cannot know, cannot explain out of our limited
capacities of reason.

So, there is a basic difference between conventional faith and
what might be called dynamic faith, as defined in the first paragraph,
above.

Conventional faith not only calls for reliance on personal beliefs,
it may also call for accepting beliefs that are neither chosen
nor evaluated by the person who adopts them. In the polemic writings
of Tertullian, one of the Church Fathers who opposed the Pagan
Mysteries, "the personal systems of the heresiarchs [Gnostics]
are contrasted with the teachings of the Apostles who 'had no
faith
of their own' and did not choose what they believed." Tertullian
defined heresy as
"personal choice exercised in matters where it does not
apply." (H. E. W. Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth,
p, 9.) In his view, the faith of the Apostles
is superior to any subjective views that might be developed
through "personal systems" of interpreting reality.

Tertullian's formula is the most extreme endorsement
of blind faith imaginable, and
it
is
not
at all uncommon
in the
world
today. It is widespread because it works, after a fashion. If
what I believe has not been chosen by me but for me,
the faith I
hold in my beliefs will seem even more transcendent to my personal
reality. Such faith aligns
me to powers greater than myself — yes,
but what exactly are these powers? Those who live by this
extremist code assume that the faith derived from beliefs
not of their own choosing aligns them to a superhuman agency,
God. But where do these items of received belief come from? Where
do the "laws of God" originate? In every instance,
they are supplied by religious institutions. But faith in the
beliefs
provided
by
an institution
such as Islam
or the Catholic Church aligns
its
adherents,
not to
Allah or God,
but
to the donor institution.
What is taken for a connection to Divinity is really an obligation
to take the word of God's self-appointed representatives "on
faith." . In great measure, the blindness of conventional faith
resides in
how it
allows
the
believer to
ignore
where his
or her
faith
is actually based. It is as if I relied on a cable tv service
to supply me with programs to watch, but assumed that the programs
come from superior beings on Mars. Delusion of this type of
passes for normal in the realm of world religions.

It is said that the presidency of George W. Bush is "resolutely
faith-based." His life story is now widely regarded as an
example of the power of belief to shape human affairs. (Newsweek,
March 10, 2003) The American president often expresses his faith
in
his
political
judgements.
Some
people
admire him for boldly stating his faith, while others find
such a blatant
expression of personal faith inappropriate to his secular role
as world leader. By stating his faith in such a forthright manner,
Bush calls upon the allegiance of those who share the same
belief-system. This self-serving tactic almost certainly decided
his election to a second term.

The power of faith appears to reside in psychological
dynamism: the act of believing something
that cannot be determined by reason or direct experience confers
exceptional strength on the believer. Thus, President Bush acquires
a higher measure of strength through his faith — i.e., his
beliefs regarding matters that cannot be proven by reason or verified
by direct
experience. By accepting to believe what lies beyond the limits
of human knowledge, the believer transcends those limits. But is this
tactic of transcendence really as valid as it seems?

In fact, this kind of faith allows the individual to
abandon reason and forgo interpretation. In the belief that some
matters
simply cannot be understood by the human mind out of its own
capacities, many people rely on faith; in doing so, they do not
consider
that their belief about the limits of human knowledge may
be fallacious. In other words, they believe that faith is necessary
where our powers of explanation fail. The assumption here is,
that faced with our limits, our powers of explanation fail absolutely.
The idea that our limits are not fixed and absolute but subject
to expand as we develop the capacities inherent to human
potential, never enters into the equation of conventional faith.
In short, conventional faith is a flat refusal to accept and
explore human potential.

The issue of faith is extremely problematic, because
attaching this term to the act of belief makes it almost impossible
to conceive of another kind of faith, one that does not rely
on belief. However, in metahistorical perspective, faith in the
human
species — that is, faith in human potential— is just
that other kind. Gnostics had a special term for faith in human
potential. They called it Pistis Sophia, "confidence
in indwelling wisdom."

In the Afterword of The Seeker's Handbook (1991) I
tried to distinguish faith from belief in this statement: "Faith
is the commitment to achieve what can be imagined, while belief
is reliance on nonverifiable systems of description." With this
language I drew on a Gnostic cue concerning the aspect of our
divine endowment called epinoia, or "the luminous epinoia."
In essence, the Sophianic endowment is nous, "divine
intellect," but Gnostics, in their discipline as masters of noetic
science, were able to discern how nous unfolds in one
direction toward reason and in another beyond it, toward revelation.
They
called the reasoning faculty dianoia,
"through intelligence," and the imaginative faculty, epinoia,
"hyper-intelligence." With dianoia, we
reason through (dia) experiences. With epinoia,
we enter directly into a visionary mode of awareness, an altered
state of knowledge. In the concept of the Pistis Sophia,
Gnostics affirmed their faith in the complementary operation
of these powers.

Fallen Goddess Scenario The
creation myth of the Gnostics, describing how a goddess from
the Pleroma came to be embodied in the planet earth. Also called
the Sophia Mythos, this is not, technically speaking, a creation
myth in the sense of the Biblical account of creation in Genesis:
rather, it is a mythopoetic rendition of emanation
theory.

Although allusions to a feminine deity identified with the earth
are widespread in mythology and indigenous lore, Gnostic materials
present the unique case of a full-blown scenario that describes
how such a deity (Aeon) on the cosmic level turns into a planetary
body. In short, Gnosticism presents the elements for a unique
narrative about Gaia-Sophia, the Goddess who became the earth.

Note: This entry is more than a definition:
it is a summary of several factors pertaining to the Fallen Goddess
scenario (abbreviated FGS), including the source materials for
the narrative. As the FGS is cited so frequently through Metahistory.org,
I thought it would be helpful to provide a resume of the narrative
and an overview of its derivation. This entry contains links
to key places in the site where the FGS is discussed. The full-blown
story form of the scenario is of course found in the Gaia Mythos. jll

Unfortunately, due to the sparse and fragmentary nature of the
textual evidence, the Fallen goddess Scenario has to be reconstructed,
and re-imagined, often by making extrapolations from slim and scattered
clues. I call this the imaginal reworking of the mythos.
This task involves, in part, a transposition of the mystical and
symbolic language of the Gnostic materials into astronomical terms.
(For more on extrapolations and astronomical language, see Coco
de Mer, Part One: The Human Role in Gaia's
Dreaming.)

1, The mandala of Aeons (cosmic gods) in the Pleroma
2, The Pleromic projection of the Anthropos, the human species.
3, The plunge of the Aeon Sophia from the Pleroma
4, The emergence of the Archons, an inorganic species
5, The formation of the Mother Star
6, The intervention of the Aeon Christos to assist Sophia
7, The full metamorphosis of Sophia into Gaia, the planet earth
8, The correction of Sophia, involving humanity

Of these eight features, 1 through 5 are entirely pre-terrestrial.
These features concern events that occur before Sophia becomes
embodied in the earth, events that prove to be preparatory to
the conditions of terrestrial life - for instance, the capture
of the organic earth in the inorganic planetary system. Features
6 and 7 concern the formation of the planetary body, the biosphere,
and the appearance of all species, including humanity, the outgrowth
of the Anthropos, or divine template (feature 2). Feature 8 concerns
current and future events in the biosphere and the prospect of
co-evolution of our species with Gaia-Sophia.

(In the synopsis of
the Gaia Mythos, four Parts are indicated. Part One, "Fallen
Goddess," comprises features 1 through 6 in the above summary.
Part Two, "Gaia Awakening," comprises features 6 (tied
over to Part One) and 7. The remaining two Parts of the Gaia
Mythos are entirely concerned with feature 8.)

The task of piecing together the FGS relies on longish passages
and isolated clues in the Nag Hammadi Codices and in paraphrases
of Gnostic cosmology found in the polemics of the Church Fathers.
The NHC materials are widly inconsistent in how they present
the full-scale cosmological narrative. The most consistent, near-
complete versions of the FGS occur in four documents, the longest
in the NHC.

Basic Cosmology (Pages refer to leaves in the
codices, each leaf or sheaf being written on both sides: hence
31 pages = 16 leaves.):

The Apocryphon of John. 31 pages. Found in three versions
of various lengths in the NHC and in one fragmentary version
in a non-NHC text. This is most comprehensive text on the Sophia
mythos, giving a relatively coherent overview of all eight features.

The Hypostasis of the Archons. 11 pages. Omits features
1 and 2, presents crucial details on the activity of the Archons
and Sophia's correction (feature 8).

On the Origin of the World. 30 pages. Found in two
versions in the NHC. Omits features 1 and 2, presents a detailed
treatment of features 4 and 5, including the Gnostic narrative
of Adam and Eve. Ends with a rare apocalyptic passage referring
to feature 8.

The Tripartate Tractate. 78 pages, longest in the NHC.
Describes the Sophia Mythos without using the name of Sophia.
For instance, Sophia's plunge (feature 3) is called "The
Imperfect Begetting of the Logos." Refers to the chief Archon
as the Demiurge, a term found in Plato and the Hermetica.
Contains important details on episodes 4 through 8, with an emphasis
on the salvific action of the Aeon Christos. This text presents
the Demiurge as an artisan assisting the Pleromic gods, rather
than as an aberration and adversary to them and, by extension,
to humanity. In this and other elements, Tri Trac is
not genuinely Gnostic. Rather, it more closely resembles Hermetic
texts that develop a favorable view of the Demiurge (i.;e., the
Archons) as an "artificer" who assists the Pleromic
gods in engineering the world-process.

Other cosmological texts:

Trimorphic Protennoia. 15 pages. A revelation discourse
presenting the descent of the Aeon Sophia in obscure mystical
language. Rich with allusion, although it contains almost no
concete elements of cosmology. For an extended discussion of
this text, see Sophia's
Passion in Coco de Mer, Part One.

The Paraphrase of Shem (41 pages), like The Tripartate
Tractate, presents the FGS in abstract language, but even
more vaguely. This text is allegorical rather than mythological.
Sophia is named, but not as a main character. Paraph Shem features
Darkness, Spirit and Nature as the three principal actors in
the cosmic drama. In allusion to feature 4, the emergence of
the Archons, it refers to an "afterbirth" rather
than an "abortion." It is difficult to extract anything
relevant to the FGS from this material.

A Valentinian Exposition (8 pages, very fragmentary)
describes the Pleroma and paired Aeons (feature 1), omits 2,
the projection of the Anthropos, and treats 4 in a manner specific
to the Valentinian School, contrasted to the Sethian School,
whose version I follow in reconstructing the mythos. This text
refers to feature 6 by the phrase, "Jesus and Sophia revealed
the creature," and other obscure clues relating to the mysterious
co-action of these Aeons in the formation of all species. It
uniquely describes Sophia laughing despite Her unexpected exile
from the Pleroma; in short, amusing Herself as She can. Val
Exp contains the memorable, almost taunting line: "Indeed,
the Devil is one of the divinities." This refers to the
Gnostic view that Ialdabaoth, the chief Archon, is a diabolic
entity, but still entitled to divine status, of a kind.

In A Valentinian Exposition, feature 6, the intervention
of the Aeon Christos in behalf of Sophia, tends to be treated
separately from the evolutionary narrative. The precise manner
in which Christos assists Sophia, and the ongoing effects of
this intervention for humanity, are deeply problematic issues
in Gnostic study. Some texts make Christos and Sophia the paired
Aeons who project the Anthropos, the template for the human species
(feature 2) - hence, presenting them as the divine parents of
humanity. This action occurs within the Pleroma, before Sophia
falls. There follows an intervention of Christos into Sophia's
evolving world - this is feature 6, the least developed episode
in the FGS. Some clues on this feature of the scenario occur
in the parallel texts The Sophia of Jesus Christ and Eugnostos
the Blessed.

The intervention of the Aeon Christos in the evolution of species
while Sophia is transforming into Gaia is described in the paraphrase
of Irenaeus more completely than in any surviving text. See Ante-Nicene
Fathers in Gnostic
Materials in the Bibliography. .

Cognitive Psychology
and Critique:

Other texts in the NHC that do not present cosmological elements
nevertheless contain key passages on the motives and methods
of the Archons, their effect upon humanity, ways in which they
can be detected and resisted, and more. In these passages we
encounter the cognitive psychology unique
to Gnosticism, and so closely linked to its cosmology. The Archons
arise from the unilateral action of Sophia, an action that produces
bizarre side-effects for humanity, and so everything concerning
them is of crucial importance to our species' co-evolution with
the Goddess. In Gnostic terms, knowing ourselves as a species
depends on understanding the actions and effects of the Archons
in the cosmic perspective and, simultaneously, in the depths
of our experience. Gnosis leads ultimately to a startling encounter
with the shadow functions of our own minds.

The Gospel of Truth. 26 pages. Found in two versions
in the NHC. Gives a generalized view of episodes 2 through 4,
referring exclusively to "the Father" (the Originator
in the Gaia Mythos) and not naming Sophia. Nevertheless,
this text contains important material on deviated beliefs, the
main effect of the Archons. The analysis of ignorance and the
description of the Archons as "empty fictions" recall
the teaching of Buddhism on avidya and the apparitional
nature of phenomena. This text illustrates the close parallelism
of Buddhist thought with Gnosticism.

The Gospel of Philip. 34 pages. Contains vivid material
on the Archons and their game of deception, and alludes to secret
sexual rites for producing immunity to Archontic intrusion. This
text presents some anti-Christian agrument, protesting the ideology
of salvation by faith, etc. Also describes how the Archons work
in our mental syntax by false attribution of meaning. Gos
Phil contains the famous line, "The world came about
through a mistake." (For a close analysis of this line,
see Coco de Mer.)

The First Apocalypse of James. 6 pages, fragmentary.
Contains important material on the intrusion of the Archons and
how to resist it. This and The Second Apocalypse of James (5
pages, also fragmentary) contain passages that link the NHC to
the Dead Sea Scrolls and the figure of James, the brother of
Jesus. Jerusalem is described as "the dwelling place of
many Archons." This material emphasizes the Gnostic view
that Jewish religion centered on Jehovah was the entry point
for the intrusion of the Archons.

The Second Treatise of the Great Seth. 17 pages. Contains
a scathing critique of Jewish and Christian doctrines. Uniquely
important for its description of the plan of the Archons to deviate
humanity from its proper course of evolution. Openly ridicules
the Biblical Patriarchs from Adam down the line. Contains a unique
reference to "the Mesotes
of Jesus," a mystical function of the Christos Aeon
related to feature 6 of the FGS. An enormous piece of the Fallen
Goddess scenario must reconstructed from this singular cue.

The Apocalypse of Peter. 13 pages. Contains a protest
against faith in Jesus and Christian doctrines, including a famous
passage on "the laughing savior," and some comments
on how to face and defeat the Archons.

As explained elsewhere in the site, I use the Lego
method to select from all texts those materials that will
support a coherent preconceived version of the Sophia mythos.
Scholars are obliged to work in the same way, but since they
are not intent upon producing a coherent narrative of any kind,
they end up merely putting the material in categories. In effect,
they sort the Lego pieces into piles, but do not attempt to make
anything from the parts so selected. There are about half a dozen
piles, with various pieces common to different piles. The Lego
pieces for FGS tend to accumulate in four piles, labelled Valentinian,
Sethian, anti-Jewish and anti-Christian.

In the Valentinian version of the Sophia mythos, the Aeon Sophia
does not really depart from the Pleroma, only Her enthymesis (desire)
does. This version is closely paraphrased by the Church Fathers
who took a particular interest in it because Valentinian teachings
tend to fit Christian salvationist ideology in some respects.
Hence Valentinian Lego pieces are often found in the pile labelled
Christian Gnosticism. Before Nag Hammadi appeared in English
(1979), Hans Jonas wrote The Gnostic Religion, published
in 1958. It contains (in Ch. 8) an important paraphrase of the
Valentinian system. Jonas explains how "the Intention or
Desire of the Sophia, hypostasized in its separation from her,
is now a new personal being: the lower Sophia or Achamoth." (p.
186) His description of the suffering of Sophia and the origination
of matter is helpful in understanding my version of the scenario,
even though Jonas relies largely on Valentinian ideas, which
I generally do not follow.

My imaginal reworking of the FGS emphasizes Sethian Gnosticism
which is not only non-Christian but also anti-Christian and anti-Jewish.
In the Sethian version, Sophia really does depart from the Pleroma.
By its own definition, Sethian Gnosticism presents the teaching
of Illuminators, Buddha-like teachers who appear periodically
in the world to bring the message of enlightenment. The illuminators
cannot be confounded with Christ-like saviors who intervene in
history. They are messengers, not messiahs. The Gnostic Christos
is not the Christ of Saint Paul. Sethian Gnosticism represents
the non-messianic expression of an illuminist message, direct
pointing to the truth that frees us. The contrast between salvationism
and illuminism is central to the treatment of Gnosticism in Metahistory.org.

The message of Gnosis for today comes in two parts: the imaginal
reworking of the Fallen Goddess Scenario, and the protest against
Judeo-Christian-Islamic ideology. Because scholars get lost in
sorting through the Lego pieces of surviving materials, they
do not arrive
at a fair presentation of either of these components. On the
one hand, their specialist restrictions prevent them from acquiring
a general overview of the mythos. On the other hand, they are
daunted by the Archon thesis and even perhaps shocked by the
identification of Ialdabaoth, the chief Archon, with Jehovah,
the father god of the Old Testament. Yet the Archon thesis cannot
be ignored, for it provides the crucial hinge between the mythic
cosmology of the Gnostics and their critique of religious ideology.
My treatment of the materials contributing to the FGS is intended
both to highlight and to correlate these two components.

first peoples: synonymous
with indigenous peoples and native-mind peoples.

formats: in the context of metahistory,
a format is the general frame in which a script or scenario is
developed. There are three primary formats: religion, science
and culture. Each of the six types of scripts can occur in one
of these formats, hence there are eighteen root-schematics (abstract
cores) of scripts. A sexual script in the format of science
differs from a sexual script in the format of culture, but the
differences are relative and nuanced. The famous study of Masters
and Johnson on human sexuality was presented in a scientific
format: clinical information about men and women having sexual
intercourse. But this scientific study of sexuality was purely
American in its cultural setting. The scientific format was colored
by cultural elements.

An example of a sexual script in the cultural format is the study
of the social customs of Polynesian natives by Margaret Mead, Coming
of Age in Samoa. Although her approach was also scientific,
i.e., anthropological, it was formatted in a cultural way. The
beliefs reflected in Meads scenario of Polynesian sexual
mores ­ for instance, that society benefits by laxity of
sexual restrictions ­ belong to a long tradition rooted
in the Romantic notion of the noble savage. Strictly
speaking, Mead does not posit beliefs based on her anthropological
field work. She presents reasoned insights drawn from close observation
of human behavior. Her study merely provides material upon which
beliefs may be sketched or from which they may be extrapolated.
The beliefs or belief-loaded propositions developed from the
work of scholars like Mead obviously go far beyond the limits
set by those scholars.

An example of a sexual script formatted in a religious way would
be the story of Adam and Eve in the Christian Bible. This scenario
contains cultural elements of the background from which it emerged,
of course., but it is primarily a script intended for religious
inculcation. Formatting refers to the intent of the script as
much as it does to its character, or perhaps even more so.

fundamentalism A belief-system
that insists on possessing absolute truth preserved in a sacred
text that can neither be refuted or altered. The most well-known
fundamentalist text in the world is of course the Bible, but
there as others, such as the Koran and the Book of
Mormon.

Belief in the literal meaning of the Bible as the "revealed
word" of God is a fundamentalist belief, but so is belief
in the irrefutable truth of the Darwinian theory of evolution.
Fundamentalist belief allows no debate or dissent among those
who hold it.